One rainy day at a time
by Wilsden
Summary: Life has changed forever for two C.I.5 operatives.


One rainy day at a time.

It's mid April and, as I exit my vehicle and walk across the yard to C.I.5's headquarters, the sun's warmth is already burning into the back of my neck despite the early hour of the day but I'm scarcely aware of it. I'm not aware of much these days though I vaguely register that Nick Jennings is leaning with his back against a car, arms folded eyes closed, his face tilted towards the sun. He hasn't seen me or if he has he makes no acknowledgement of the fact and I am glad of it. I've avoided him and pretty much everyone else for about two months now ever since Operation Narrowboat when we lost our respective partners. We buried Richard 'Sparkie' Sparks and Ray three weeks later.

It doesn't get any easier coming here, coming to C.I.5. I tell myself a hundred times a day that I should get out, leave, find a new job but I can't, not yet. How can I when, even though Ray's gone he's still here? His presence fills the restroom as he fills the kettle, makes the tea and reads through the early morning papers. He cheerfully complains that I never remember to buy biscuits to go with the brew, his big green eyes shining at me across the table. He's in the corridors, his voice echoing around its walls, his laughter ringing out amongst those of the secretaries for a joke shared. He's in the very fabric of the building and has been for five years. He's everywhere we've been and until something happens to change that then I'll continue to come here.

There is a strange troubling quietness that seems to follow me about these days and one that I can't shake off. I haunt the world in a half life, disconnected somehow from reality, lost in my own meaningless existence. Neither Ray or I had expected to lose our lives that morning yet of course it was always in the deepest recesses of our minds that there was always the possibility on any mission we were assigned. Ray was killed instantly, knowing nothing about it and for that at least I am grateful. Not so for Jennings. Sparkie lingered between worlds for two days.

There was no need in me for revenge, for justice, as the gunmen were killed in the raid and perhaps this contributes to my feeling of loss. I drift aimlessly with nothing to focus on and unable to come to terms with the fact that Ray's gone. It is such a heart breaking pain to realise I will never see him again.

I opened the door and headed inside seeking refuge and solace within the building.

"Alright, Bodie?" Sally's voice behind me as I passed the secretaries room was edged with pity. Its tone, as always, was one of invitation to stop and talk, to tell her how I'm doing, to share and console but I can't talk to anyone, not even after all these weeks.

"Yeah, fine." I hurried on, not daring to look back moving restlessly along the corridor to the restroom craving its comfort. I don't know how long I had been standing there staring in transfixed at the doorway before I was conscious of someone standing beside me.

"Bodie?" A hand lightly touched my sleeve. "Are you alright?"

I raised my eyes towards the gentle Scottish voice. "Yeah...I..."

"You look like you've seen a ghost." Cowley turned quickly. "Come on, my office." He said briskly. "I've a job for you."

I paused at the door for a moment to glance around the restroom again before following him.

"I've arranged a session of counselling for both you and Jennings and before you object it's compulsory. " Cowley said before I'd even sat down opposite him.

"I'm not going." I said resolutely, with arms crossed defiantly.

"Then you'll be out of this organisation." Cowley replied harshly. "Or is that what you want?"

"You said something about a job." I attempted to change the subject but he was having none of it.

" All in good time."

I sighed loudly and Cowley took off his glasses and threw them on the desk.

"I've just had all this with Jennings." he said wearily, running a hand over his face.

"Are you surprised? No amount of talking about it with some shrink is going to bring Sparkes and Doyle back, is it?"

"If you'd just let me explain. It's not a psychiatrist. It's a specially trained counsellor. It's an idea from America that's catching on here and has met with considerable success. And I will not be privy to what is said and discussed between the two of you at these sessions if that's what you're worried about."

"Sessions? Plural?"

"I expect you to attend at least three, more if you need it."

"I won't."

Cowley softened his voice, holding on to his patience. "Look, Bodie, I'm not a great advocate of this kind of thing either but it's been weeks now. I need you back in the game. I'm not unsympathetic, Doyle was a good man and God knows I've lost enough friends myself in similar circumstances throughout my career but the world keeps turning, Bodie, life moves on, it has to. You have to. You need to decide if you are moving with it, moving with C.I.5."

Cowley stared intently at me trying to reach into the very soul of me, trying to reach past the impenetrable dullness that surrounded me. Failing, he pushed a business card across the desk towards me. "I'll leave you to make contact but I expect to hear back from them in the next day or two that an appointment has been made."

I gazed listlessly over Cowley's shoulder and out of the window. Pale grey clouds were beginning to eat up the remaining blue sky.

"Are you even listening to me? Cowley's annoyance cut through my drifting thoughts. Our eyes locked and it was his turn to sigh deeply and then he shuffled through several sheets of paper. "Now then," he said finally. "Willie the snitch has been in touch. He says he has some useful information to impart. You and Jennings check it out."

My head snapped up. "Jennings?" What's he put me with him for? I've been mainly working with Murphy doing basic work until he considers me fit for full duty.

"Yes, Jennings." Cowley replied curtly. "Have you a problem with that as well?"

Cowley studied the faint twitch in my eye still hoping to be admitted into my thinking. I can't tell him that yes, I did have a problem with that. I don't want Jennings in _my_ car, in _our_ car. I don't want him in Ray's seat, sitting beside me, not him, not anyone.

Bored of me now Cowley treated me to one of his withered looks. "Right, be off with you."

I had barely left my seat when I heard his voice again. "Oh Bodie? Haven't you forgotten something?" His eyes drop to the business card still sitting on his desk and I pick it up without enthusiasm and slip it into my jacket pocket. I plodded back along the hallway to briefly glance into the restroom and then headed for the stairs. At the bottom I paused at the door, my hand on the handle. April was living up to its reputation and a light shower had begun to fall. I peered out through the small door window just in time to see Nick Jennings scamper around the vehicle. He jumped quickly out of the rain into the passenger seat and I suddenly realised that that wasn't his vehicle. He'd taken a random car from the car pool. He didn't want me in _his_ car, in their car. He doesn't want me sitting beside him where Sparkie once sat.

I didn't know much about Jennings other than he and Sparkie were partners from day one just like Ray and I. And they were a good team.

Watching him brush the rain from his long floppy blond hair I wondered how he'd handled Sparkie's death. Like me? Drowning himself in alcohol for a week? Had Cowley called round, told him to snap himself out of it? Did he tell him to spend the next week getting sober and fit for duty and was that instruction largely ignored for several days? Probably not. Jennings was a more grounded sensible individual than me. He'd have spent his bereavement leave in quiet contemplation, gathering his thoughts, deciding on his future. Nor would he using the C.I.5's offices like some security blanket, unable to let go of the spirit of his dead partner that dwells within it.

"Counselling!" Jennings scoffed as I opened the car door and got in. "He's got no chance!"

"Too right!" I agreed, though something in his tone confirms he knows we have no choice in the matter but to attend.

"Mind you," he continued thoughtfully, "she _is_ a bird."

"What?"

"The shrink ...thingy... counsellor. It's a woman. Didn't Cowley give you her business card?"

"Oh... yeah." I replied preoccupied. " I didn't look at it."

"Just our luck she's sixty with a moustache and built like a tank!"

There follows a strangely comfortable silence between us as we stare out through the rain beaten windscreen.

"I miss him," Jennings said suddenly, gazing at me with the same sad desolate look in his eyes that I knew he saw in mine. "I don't want another partner either, I've told Cowley."

There is another spell of comforting stillness before he spoke again.

"Do you think they knew?"

I stared at him, blankly. "Who? Knew what?"

"Sparkie and Doyle. Do you think they knew that we thought...you know...that they were the best..."

"Of course they did, we put up with them for over five years didn't we?" I grinned at him and he smiled back before growing serious again.

"Don't know if I even want to stay here in this line of work."

I found myself plagued by pangs of guilt. I shouldn't have been so distant, I should have made the effort, as I know Ray would have done had the tables been turned, to commiserate with the man. We are both adrift in unfathomable loneliness and indecision. His thoughts and fears for the future are also mine. For someone I hardly knew we suddenly have such a lot in common.

"I think for now, mate, we just have to take it one day at a time." I told him, as I started the engine and cleared the rain from the window, watching the sun slowly appearing again. "One rainy day at a time."

Had I, at that point, turned to look back through the rear windscreen I would have seen Cowley standing at the window of his office staring down at the car, a small self satisfied smile on his face. He could sense the slow faint wind of change rifling through his grieving operatives. For the first time in weeks I sensed it too as I turned the car out of the yard, but was still too disturbed by my own nagging worry to fully appreciate it. Ray wasn't in the restroom today.


End file.
